Abstract
The norms of every legal order are based on the image of the world dominant in a particular culture and shared by the lawmakers. Legal regulations are created on the basis of the beliefs the lawmaker entertains about the reality, about the properties of the entities it comprises and about their various interdependencies. Normative decisions (both legislative and interpretative or applicative) are also rooted in the culture-specific hierarchy of values. They determine a set of interests and goals that are worth attaining and that justify the models of behaviour, which are supposed to serve their pursuit. Thus, the image of the world that constitutes the very foundations of a legal order includes primarily certain ontological and axiological beliefs.
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Notes
- 1.
On the inadequacy of the Hartian distinction between the external and internal points of view, and the necessity to distinguish a hermeneutic perspective, see MacCormick (1981).
- 2.
Dworkin (1986), p. 90.
- 3.
See also Pietrzykowski (2016a).
- 4.
Bocheński (1994), p. 55.
- 5.
Bocheński (1993), p. 23.
- 6.
Bochenski (1994), p. 18.
- 7.
Bocheński (1994), p. 18.
- 8.
Bocheński (1994), p. 56.
- 9.
Digesta, 1.5.2.
- 10.
It is worth noticing that the criticism of the concept of human dignity, present in ethical reflection, in many respects closely resembles Bocheński’s criticism of humanism. Thus, for example Arthur Schopenhauer refers to the notion of dignity as “‘the shibboleth of all the perplexed and empty-headed moralists”’ and explains its popularity in the following way: “‘They cunningly counted on the fact that their readers would be glad to see themselves invested with such a dignity and would accordingly be quite satisfied with it”’. In this way, human dignity became a concept which every moral system could choose as its foundation, and “‘from such a height those systems of morality could go on comfortably preaching”’. Dignity “‘makes such an impression by its magnificent sound that it is not easy for us to venture forward and examine it at close quarters”’. However, the effort to “‘put it to test of reality”’ reveals that “‘it too is only a hollow hyperbole in which the contradictio in adjecto lurks like a gnawing worm”’. See Schopenhauer (1995), p. 100–101.
- 11.
This view can be found, for example in the otherwise valuable and interesting study by Naffine (2009), p. 39 ff., where the author juxtaposes “‘legalist”’ (conventional) and “‘realist”’ approaches to personhood in law.
- 12.
Gunther Teubner discusses and develops Niklas Luhmann’s and Bruno Latour’s views in this area. See Teubner (2007).
- 13.
Judgement of the Constitutional Tribunal of 30 September 2008 (K 44/07).
- 14.
Ibidem.
- 15.
This situation is even more characteristic of American law, where the Supreme Court’s much publicized ruling declared that the freedom of conscience (religion) applied also to legal persons (Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. 573 US (2014)).
- 16.
For more details, see Wise (2006).
- 17.
Stone (2010), p. 3.
- 18.
See, in particular, The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, signed by a group of prominent consciousness researchers (including biologists, physiologists, neuroscientists and philosophers) during the Francis Crick Memorial Conference on Consciousness in Human and non-Human Animals (Cambridge 2012).
- 19.
Griffin (2013).
- 20.
Gelef and Laland (2009).
- 21.
Ehrlich (1995).
- 22.
- 23.
On this issue, cf. in particular Dombrowski (1997).
- 24.
- 25.
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Pietrzykowski, T. (2018). On Juridical Humanism: The Anthropocentrism of the Legal Approach to Personhood and Its Philosophical Assumptions. In: Personhood Beyond Humanism. SpringerBriefs in Law. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78881-4_3
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